Find your strength and watch it grow.

#FightTheResolution2015

Just like most industries, the fitness world sees its highs and lows. They just tend to be a bit more obvious and predictable. Like the influx of summer prep flexies around late March preceding the slowly abandoned cardio deck in the heat of summer. Then comes September when kids head back to school and people once again find fitness to fit into their routine. After all, everybody loves a routine. Of course that meets the inevitable demise of holiday chaos and calories. But it’s alright because January 1st is right around the corner and then you will truly fight the damn fight. Right?

Right.

Well, how about this year you do something crazy. I mean, completely mind-blowingly nuts. Hear me out. You make a resolution before January 1st. What? No…

Yes.

Just imagine the possibilities of starting the new year without feeling you need to change, but rather, having feeling accomplished with the new year’s buzz around you to further amplify that process?! Do yourself a favor and picture this. You have a couple goals; completely achievable but goals you’ve wanted and haven’t met at this point. Let’s pretend one of them is losing that 3 year post-pregnancy weight you’ve been meaning to tackle. So you make a promise to yourself right now in September that starting January 1st, you will join a nearby gym, hire a trainer and get that pre-prego bod back. In fact, your BFF is going to join you. Ask yourself a few questions and see if any of the following feel familiar:

1) How many years have you been saying that? At least 3?

2) How many years have you accomplished that? And how about your BFF?

3) Leading up to January, which is 4 whole months away, diet isn’t super strict since you will be starting your diet in January anyway.

4) January 1st has now become the dark looming cloud hovering in the horizon, until that fateful ball drops down.

5) Weird. It’s January 1st and now are 6 pounds up from September.

6) By March, your friend has not only left you in the dark, but you are simply paying rent to that conveniently local gym.

Well, what if it went something like this instead:

1) Making that resolution in September made a January 2015 resolution unnecessary. You’re just going to continue your already stellar progress from 4 months of work.

2) This year, January 1st has become a milestone in your journey. It’s the year that you are ahead of the crowd, whether or not your friend has followed. After all, this is your fight.

3) You have a game plan for the holidays. There’s no reason to not celebrate with your favorite foods and drinks this holiday season. But, you listen to your body’s cues and know you feel much better tasting food rather than shoving it in. Plus, you need the right foods to energize you for your morning workouts. You’re starting to really love them and how they make you feel.

4) January 1st is now exciting. You are already down 25% of your original goal and there’s no stopping you. Seeing all the resolutioners on the treadmills that first week makes you think, “I’m so relieved that’s not me. I’m glad I made this promise to myself months ago.”

5) You’re so thankful you survived the holidays. You really appreciated the time you spent with your loved ones rather than harping on the overindulgence and the fact that you would take care of business in the new year.

6) You are now an inspiration to your friend and anyone else who is “waiting for the right time” to start their healthy journey.

#FightTheResolution2015 is about empowering yourself to start immediately. A really dear friend of mine just started and I’m so proud of her. She’s enjoying what she is doing in the gym and that’s the first step. If you start overwhelming yourself with numbers and changes and doing too much too fast it feels like a domino effect of failures. One way to get started is to just get started. It’s not about finding what burns the most calories the fastest. Because if you hate doing that particular exercise program, you won’t stick with it; so, it doesn’t matter anyway. If you like Spin or Zumba, start with that. If you are doing something 4-5 times a week when you were originally doing nothing 7 days a week, then you are already heading towards success.

Yes – I am all about plans and programming when it comes to achieving a particular goal. But, if your goal is to just start moving, then find something you enjoy and don’t stop doing it! Once you have movement in your life and you know it’s not going anywhere, it’s time to develop a plan. Take a closer look at your food (I’m a huge advocate for MyFitnessPal), your sleep, your hydration and your rest. You will start loving your body so much more once you know how hard it’s willing to work.

I’ll get the ball rolling. Here’s what I’m working on for #FightTheResolution2015

1) Start experimenting with more creative food options and post/share for my friends and followers.

2) Hit a 225lb squat.

3) Practice Yoga no less than once a week.

So please join me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and show me your #FightTheResolution2015. Tag me and let us see what you are doing for yourself now in order to celebrate when the ball drops.

This is such a good idea! I have so many friend who, every year, say “I’m going to get fit this year, it’s my New Years resolution!” And most of the time don’t even get a gym membership to get the ball rolling! It’s impossible to set up lifelong habits in the festive season – there just too much more going on, and it’s too easy to be tempted by all the food around you which will put you into a spiral of guilt and discourage starting a gym program. This is such an excellent idea and a beautifully written post, I’ve already got a few names buzzing that I’ll be sending a link to!

Thank you, Rose! We think of the new year as new beginnings which makes it seem like a natural fit for getting into shape. But it feels a whole lot better to start right away! Thank you for your kind words and for sharing my posts!